Catch the "magic hour"

"For about 20 minutes just after sunset, the fading daylight balances perfectly with the artificial light of the city and suddenly, colors pop. Gray sky transforms into an inky blue; London buses look bright red even in the pouring rain. It’s a trick photographers fall back on again and again," said Easton, who took this shot at the top of Yankee Stadium in New York during that time of day. "The green of the turf leaped out just as the light was fading."

Anticipate action

"When something catches my eye that I think will make a great shot, I wait for it to happen again. I saw three guys walking past the Eiffel Tower in Paris, their legs mirroring the building, so I set up the shot and snapped a woman doing the same thing. I was shooting into the sun, hence the silhouette—it was a different way to represent a really obvious landmark."

Expect the unexpected

"Photogenic stuff doesn’t always happen more than once, so it’s important to have your camera ready to shoot at all times," Easton advised. In this case, he was photographing Stockholm’s skyline when he spotted a man dive into the water. "It took me completely by surprise, but I managed to get the shot."

Get up early

"You see a completely different side of a city when you get up before everyone else, and the sun is low so you can shoot into it. I took this photo in Shanghai standing on the Bund, which reminds me of Liverpool, where I’m from, looking over at the skyscrapers of Pudong at about 6 a.m."